KARACHI: Many placards being waved by the protesters gathered outside the Cantonment Board Clifton office on Khayaban-i-Rahat in phase VI of Defence Housing Authority on Tuesday morning had silhouettes of water taps with just a drop of water falling out.

Some also carried messages such as ‘We want water’, ‘No more tankers’, ‘Corruption Board Clifton’, ‘Go corruption go’, etc. Everyone was angry and understandably so.

On the other side, there was no acknowledgement or reaction from the CBC building to the protesters’ demands for them to come outside and address their grievances. One protester spoke through a megaphone. He urged the officials to at least come outside and meet the residents of DHA and Clifton, the members of residents association and business groups operating in the areas that come under the CBC jurisdiction but to no avail as giving up then all started chanting “Shame ... shame”. The protester with the megaphone then warned of a rally on Oct 15.

Salma Nadir, one of the residents, said she paid the water tax but was still not getting any water through the line. “I need water but it is not coming through the line. So I have to get it through tankers, which I pay for through my nose. But I ask if there is water why can it not come through the line?”

Mohammad Musa said that he hailed from Bakhshan Village in Gizri, which was also not getting any water. “Sometimes, when we can afford to do so, we get a tanker. When we cannot, we break our backs carrying water in cans from the filtered water plant taps,” he said.

Hammad ur Rahman, who lives in phase II extension, joined the protest in his wheelchair. “My area is one of the oldest DHA areas to have been developed by them. Today, the underground water supply lines are old and broken. They need replacing. The CBC really needs to upgrade its infrastructure,” he said.

Ms Nusrat Mohsin was from DHA phase I. She said the CBC had completely failed that phase as neither did they get water nor was there anyone taking away the trash. “The CBC sweepers demand money to do their job,” she said. “Does the CBC not pay them?” she added.

“My lawn has gone dry. My plants are all dead,” said Parveen Akhtar from DHA phase VI.

Hanif Parekh from the Korangi Industrial Area accused the CBC of helping the tanker mafia by laying a faulty line network. “The pipes are lower than the valves,” he said.

Sohaib Kamran, another DHA resident, spoke about the DHA Cogen Power Desalination Plant. “What does it do other than send millions of rupees down the drain? We were told that it would make electricity as well as water. It has been years and the thing does absolutely nothing while the people working there draw their salaries for also doing nothing. It is the biggest fraud from DHA and CBC staring us in the face,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2016